Page 235 of Red Scale Daddy
The Reaper spasms and goes limp.
For an instant we are tangled together against the hull, my visor inches from his, both of us breathing too fast.
“You chose the slower route again,” he says.
“I chose the route where you keep your head.”
“Big fan of that route.”
“Stop needing rescue.”
“Stop being so good at it.”
Dad interrupts, voice breathless but triumphant. “Hatch is open, and I am inside your terrifyingly judgmental ship.”
My chest loosens.
Then Throgg’s final trap springs.
The docking cradle clamps lock down around my ship.
The external release indicators flash red across my visor feed, and my stomach drops with a clean, cold precision. Throgg still has partial control of the cradle. He cannot stop us from boarding, so he will stop the ship from leaving.
Dux sees my face. “What?”
“Cradle locks.”
“Can you override?”
“From inside, if Dad integrates his bypass fast enough.”
Dad’s voice comes through surrounded by alarms. “I heard that, and I love the confidence you’re pretending to have in me.”
“You modified the auxiliary release architecture,” I say, already dragging Dux toward the open hatch. “Now you have to make it talk to my original launch protocols.”
“I made it better.”
“You made it stubborn.”
“Again, personality.”
We reach the dorsal hatch as another volley strikes the hull around us. Dux shoves me through first despite my objection, then drops in after me, yanking the hatch closed just as a blast scorches the outer rim. The ship’s interior wraps around me with familiar scents filtered through emergency systems—cold metal, recycled air, burnt insulation, and the faint citrus-clean tang of the cockpit sealant I selected years ago because sterile ships make people careless.
Home, damaged and furious, comes alive around me.
Alarms scream from every panel. The deck tilts under us as the ship fights the cradle locks. Dad is already half-buried in the secondary engineering bay, gloves moving through exposedconduits with the frantic confidence of a man who has broken and fixed too many things to fear consequences properly.
“Status,” I demand, sliding into the pilot’s seat.
“Rude greeting,” Dad says.
“Status.”
“Your primary core is sulking, the port stabilizer is throwing a fit, the shield lattice is seconds from becoming decorative, and my modifications are the only reason this ship is not currently a very stylish coffin.”
Dux drops into the copilot position, scanning the tactical display. “Reapers are repositioning. Three on the hull, two coming around the stern. Something bigger is moving off Throgg’s ship.”
“Define bigger,” Dad says.
